We delivered Sudi to his new home yesterday afternoon. I was glad we were able to do it and get it done because I was agonizing over my decision. I went back and forth about selling Sudi, or Ace, or both of them. What it came down to was that while I enjoyed Sudi on the ground, I didn’t enjoy riding him. My confidence was shattered after the ball fall I took off an Arabian named Virgil and I don’t think it’s ever going to come back. Even though I’m not 100 percent confidence riding Ace, I feel a lot better on him than I did on Sudi.
The man who bought him assured me that he’d take good care of him and I’m going to assume he will. It’s beyond my control now. That door is closed. Endurance racing was nothing more than a pipe dream.
Now I feel guilty leaving Ace as an only horse. Ace is very bonded to other horses and he’s not happy, but hopefully he’ll settle down. I’d like to ride him later today, but I doubt I’ll have time. I have him out in the yard so he can enjoy the good grass. I feel really guilty, but damn, it’s plumb stupid to have two horses when I barely have enough time to ride one.
When we got back from delivering Sudi, we discovered the fryer rabbits had escaped so Wally, Gel and I spent a good 45 minutes rounding them up. Then we rounded up all of the dual purpose chicks and put them in the heavy tractor that is now in the poultry pasture. I need them patterned to go up in that tractor and then eventually in one of the chicken houses. We have a number of birds that roost at night, they refuse to go in the house. I want to get these chicks patterned early to go up in a house at night.
This is not the first time the fryer rabbits have dug out of their tractor and I believe they are at the age where they can’t be kept in a tractor. They are slated to go to freezer camp this weekend so I went ahead and put them up in a cage. I can’t risk their getting killed by a predator or running off. I have too much time and money invested in raising them up. They should have been butchering size by the middle of March and here it is the middle of April and they are just big enough to do. I may be surprised at their carcass weights, we’ll see.
This morning, I put another doe and her babies into the tractor vacated by the fryers. I’ve got one more family group that I can put out on pasture in another week or two and then it will be a month or more before any of the others are old enough. So far, the mothers and babies are not digging.
We are switching heavily to the Silver Fox breed. I bought three does from a man in South Carolina on Wednesday and am getting three more from another breeder near Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully this will be a good decision. I have a doe who only had three kits (two surviving) so I foster off one purebred Silver Fox kit with her and then when we had a doe break her back, I fostered two of her kits on this doe. The kits are all about the same age, but the Silver Fox is noticeably larger than the other kits. From what I’ve been told, they get to market weigh at 8 to 10 weeks and after 10 weeks, their growth slows down. The breeder from Charleston is also sending up nine fryer rabbits that I can put on pasture for a week or two and then process. If all goes well, we’ll be rolling in rabbit.
Until later …